


if you only had time

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Gen, Time Travel, Timeless (2016) Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 03:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8562055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: It’s half past midnight when Anakin calls and says, “So, uh, Obi-wan, I think I’m a dad.”

or: Obi-wan deals with the fallout of some time travel shenanigans, and Anakin Skywalker deals with suddenly being a father.





	

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Matt Lanter for starring in _Timeless_ , honestly, this is great. title is from _Hamilton_ 's "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?" originally from [here.](http://skymurdock.tumblr.com/post/153156024823/finally-something-explodes)

It’s half past midnight when Anakin calls and says, his tone the casual tone of someone on the verge of a total emotional breakdown, “So, uh, Obi-wan, I think I’m a dad.”

Obi-wan blinks at his phone. He hasn’t gone to his house yet, too worried to find it even more changed with all that they’ve wrought at the Alamo. First Qui-gon walking around as though he never had his accident, then Obi-wan himself being married to Satine, _then_ Feemor's disappearance from history itself, now--he’s not sure what else he’ll find, should he go home. He's almost terrified to.

He’s been staying at his school office instead, checking the student records and wondering where some of them went, and who the new-old faces are. So far, only Ahsoka’s remained a constant in his class, the rest have shifted seats or shifted out of time.

And there's been an alarming number of students who've disappeared from the timeline, since this--this _thing_ started: him, Anakin, and Ahsoka, chasing after Dooku across history, trying to keep the world they know from irrevocably changing on them, the only constants from one timeline to another.

He hadn’t thought Anakin would be the one subjected to changes this time around. That’s time travel for you, he supposes, just when you think you’ve got the hang of it you end up with an old friend who’s suddenly been erased from time, or who suddenly finds himself a _father_. “Well, congratulations,” he says, dryly.

“No, you don’t get it,” says Anakin, voice getting higher-pitched as he talks, a sure sign of a breakdown. “I’m a father to five-year-old twins I’ve never met! And--And Padmé’s alive, I called her by accident because I missed her voice and she picked up, we’re divorced, she’s _alive_ and she _hates_ me, Obi-wan, I don’t know what I did to her but it must’ve been bad--”

Well, it’s about time he’d heard a patented Anakin Skywalker Explosion. He’s been long overdue for one, in fact, considering Anakin's general temperament, though probably part of the reason why was Anakin’s regular slide into alcohol-induced oblivion keeping him from completely blowing a fuse. _Was_ , he thinks now, because despite the rift and the awkwardness between them, Anakin was still, once upon a time, his closest friend. He knows the man. He knows he has a reason now, to crawl out of that oblivion. “Calm down, Anakin,” he says. “You’re a father?”

“It’s the Alamo,” says Anakin, a note of panic still coloring his tone. Obi-wan imagines him pacing around with wild eyes, outside his apartment, running his hand through his hair. “Something changed there. Something _happened_ , and now Padmé’s alive. I mean, she hates me, but as long as she's alive, then I don't _care_ , I can make it up to her. Somehow. _Somehow._ ” He hears a small, choked noise on the other end of the line, like a half-hysterical sob. “Twins! I have _twins_! Who let me have twins?”

“Yes, I gathered that much,” says Obi-wan, head spinning with the possibilities. Reinforcements had never arrived, there hadn't been enough _time_ for them to arrive, so the people amongst the reinforcements who’d died during that final doomed battle had lived this time, and gone on to have children who went on to have children and so on and so forth. It’s not a stretch to assume that a set of parents from one timeline never met up in the other, that's what had happened with Feemor.

_How many lives are going to be snuffed out before they even began by the end of this?_ he wonders, his stomach twisting into ugly knots, his mind supplying a list of names, _Feemor, Quinlan, Siri, Annileen, Kallie, Jabe, Drallig_ , like a morbid grocery list of who's been erased from existence. _How many more are going to come in, that had never been in the original timeline before the Hindenburg?_

What is he, a _historian_ , doing, changing history like this? _Stop it, Kenobi,_ he tells himself, sternly.

“What do I do?” Anakin asks, snapping Obi-wan out of his thoughts. Right, he's still in the midst of _his_ panic. “I don’t know how to be a dad, mine ran out on me and Mom when I was younger and I don't know how to be a _good_ dad. Especially not to _twins_. Especially not to twins who are going to grow up to be much better than their old man who doesn’t even _remember_ them, oh, god, I don't even know their _names_.” He gives a laugh, hysterical, that soon tapers off into a choked sob.

“And you think that I have some expertise in that field,” says Obi-wan, dryly. “Me, with my former reputation of being married to my work.” He sighs. “Well, I’m flattered you thought of me, in any case. And you should really calm down--so long as you don't run out on them, you'll be doing much better than your father ever did.”

“I--thanks, Obi-wan. For the advice.” Anakin's voice is still a little weak, but it sounds steadier now, less higher-pitched. That's one thing down, and everything else--Padmé being alive, the existence of Anakin's twins, the non-existence of Obi-wan's brother--can be panicked over later, when Obi-wan's managed to rest for a little while, for enough time that he can catch his breath and think about what Dooku's said about trust and--and someone called Sidious. Whoever _that_ is. “And you’re welcome. And what does that make Satine?”

“I have no idea,” says Obi-wan, honestly. Satine is his _wife_ , which means that, for some reason, he said _yes_ to her offer, long ago. “I’m--still figuring that out.” He huffs out a breath, looks down at the picture in his hands. Siri is gone, Quinlan is gone, Feemor (oh, god, _Feemor_ , his _brother_ ) is gone, Bail Organa is in a different department, and Obi-wan is the only constant in the picture, the only one to have stayed in the same place, smiled the same smile at the camerawoman, the only one who remembers who else should be here.

He wonders, hysterically, who took the picture, if Annileen is gone as well.

Anakin, on the other end, says, tired, “That makes two of us.”


End file.
